1. Field of Disclosed Subject Matter
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for implementing user-customizable operability for imaging operations in image forming devices.
2. Related Art
Office level image forming devices combine image forming processes and associated media handling and finishing processes in a single device. What is not clear to the common user is that any particular imaging task or job requested by the user to be carried out by the office level image forming device includes multiple individual imaging operations each according to specified orthogonal orientations. Different imaging devices behave differently with regard to these individual imaging operations. The differing behaviors can occur across imaging devices from a same manufacturer, or across like devices produced by differing vendors.
An exemplary and non-exhaustive list of individual imaging operations includes scaling or sizing, translation or image shift, mirroring or reflecting, and rotation of images in two dimensions and of image receiving media in three dimensions. These operations are generally specifically ordered for a particular image forming device. Individual image forming operations are non-commutative. Thus, differing orders of the operations manipulate an input image receiving media in different ways. As such, certain manipulation of the order of the operations, including adding additional steps, is often undertaken to produce a repeatable output based on an ordering of the operations. This manipulation can make the outcome of the operations repeatable for a particular device. Any change in an order of operations, however, as a set of transformations, will typically result in a different output unless modified in some manner that may or may not be available to the system designer and/or programmer. Frequently, it is only through an extensive iterative trial and error process that a user will get an imaging job to run as desired to produce, for example, the desired output orientation for an imaged and finished document on a particular device and this effort is not translatable to another device.
An example of an image forming device that exhibits the characteristic behaviors discussed above is a multi-function device (MFD). The MFD is an office level or light production image forming and media handling device that incorporates multiple common image forming and media handling functionalities including printing, scanning, faxing, viewing and copying. MFDs provide a smaller footprint in an office environment than would a combination of individual devices that individually carry out the respective image forming functions.
As is mentioned briefly above, conventionally, imaging operations, and an order of the imaging operations, such as rotation, scaling, and translation, are generally fixed within a device. These operations are generally fixed relative to a specific operation origin, and in a specific orientation (along specified axes of operations) with respect to that origin. Since such operations are non-commutative, order is significant when performing more than one operation. However, the ordering of the operations is often implicit and therefore unobvious to a user. Vendors often build the imaging hardware and then place a user interface on top of the hardware by which the user is able to communicate with the image processing system in a limited manner, but by which the user is unable to effect any change in an order of operations in the underlying hardware, or to specify a different origin, or axes of operations, from which imaging operations should take place.
The above difficulties can be compounded based on conventional approaches to programming schemes for office level devices that inconsistently characterize orientations of images and image receiving media. Rather than characterizing imaging orientations according to any common and manipulable mathematical framework, descriptive terms (or enumerations), such as “faceup” or “facedown,” and “inboard” or “outboard,” among others, are used to describe directions. These descriptive terms may be generally understood and tracked in the context of a particular image forming device. Interpretation of these descriptive terms, however, between different devices, particularly those of different manufacturers, tends to be inconsistent and therefore haphazard. The descriptive terms are often not consistent across devices and manufacturers as variations in the descriptive terms may be employed by individual manufacturers, or applied to individual devices leading to difficulties in interpretation between different devices. In other words, different words may be used to describe the same or similar operations, thereby leading to interpretational difficulties. Even if consistent descriptive terms are used, the points of origin for the operations and directions in which the operations are undertaken (orthogonal orientations) may differ between devices and between manufacturers. Many times devices or fleets of devices, even when produced by a same manufacturer, use different origin points and/or coordinate references as a basis by which to interpret the descriptive labels for the orientations of images and image receiving media in individual devices. Without a common frame of reference, the descriptive terms are left to the interpretation of the individual devices according to individual device frames of reference as individual devices carry out electronic image scanning and processing functions as well as mechanical image media handling and finishing functions.
In a broad context, overall imaging operations such as device specific scaling, translation, reflection, rotation and edge erase are individually undertaken relative to a particular coordinate space referenced to a particular origin for a particular device that may be completely different from another coordinate space referenced to another origin for another device. The coordinate spaces and origins by which a particular image forming device references image and image receiving media orientations can differ from device to device.
As indicated above, origins, directions of execution (axes of operations) and orders of particular internal operations are often fixed for each individual image forming device. Conventionally, the user cannot generally select a different origin, i.e., a particular corner, the center, or an arbitrary point in the imaging frame, different axes of orientations or a different order of operations for a particular device. The user cannot generally specify a different direction of rotation, or a different edge about which image media is to be flipped from, for example, a faceup to a facedown orientation.
The point at which the above difficulties may particularly manifest themselves is when the user enters a competitive environment. The user would prefer to approach any of the differing, apparently similar, devices and operate them in the same manner to achieve repeatable outcomes. Depending on a particular origin that is referenced by a particular system, the manner by which the sheet flows through the particular system, and how the platens and/or rulers are set up in the particular system, ordering of particular operations will likely result in an output from that particular system that differs from an output from another system, much to the customer dissatisfaction.
This difficulty also manifests itself in the formulation of job tickets for image forming operations across differing office level devices. Because a particular order of operations is non-commutative, a job ticket formulated for one device, which is run on a separate device, may result in an output that is not in accordance with the user's desires.